Soul Station - Hank Mobley

Recorded on February 7, 1960 at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Soul Station features Hank Mobley as the sole horn in a quartet with Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Blakey on drums. It was an unusual format for Mobley, who had recorded nine prior Blue Note dates mostly alongside other horns, and the stripped-down setting places his smooth, lyrical tenor at the center of every track. All six pieces were captured in first takes. Four are Mobley originals — including "This I Dig of You," his most recognized composition, a buoyant swinger driven by Blakey's ride cymbal and Kelly's comping — alongside Irving Berlin's "Remember" and the ballad "If I Should Lose You." Mobley's phrasing is patient and melodically inventive, building solos through logical development rather than virtuosic display, with Kelly, Chambers, and Blakey providing a rhythm section so attuned to one another that their interplay sounds effortless. The album has been consistently praised as one of the finest in the Blue Note catalog and a definitive example of hard bop tenor saxophone playing, with the relaxed authority of the session belying the fact that the musicians were working through the material for the first time.